Money and trade in Viking-Age Scandinavia

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Wolińskie Spotkania Mediewistyczne II

ECONOMIES, MONETISATION AND SOCIETY IN THE WEST SLAVIC LANDS

800–1200 AD

edited by Mateusz Bogucki and Marian Rębkowski

Szczecin 2013

Mateusz Bogucki, Marian Rębkowski

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Institute of Archaeology and Ethnology Polish Academy of Sciences, Centre for Medieval

Archeology of the Baltic Region in Szczecin

Chair of Archaeology, Szczecin University

© All papers are copyright to their authors and the Institute of Archaeology and Ethnology

Polish Academy of Sciences

Editors: Mateusz Bogucki, Marian Rębkowski

Rewievers: Prof. Dr. Sebastian Brather and Prof. dr hab. Borys PaszkiewiczBorys Paszkiewicz

This volume has been reviewed by the Editorial Board of the Institute of Archaeology and Ethnology of the Polish Academy of Scinces. Members of the Board: prof. Andrzej Janeczek, prof. Mirosława Drozd-Piasecka, prof. Dariusz Główka, Tomasz Herbich M.A., prof. Andrzej Klonder, prof. Jolanta Kowalska, dr Małgorzata Mogielnicka, prof. Piotr Taracha

Linguistic proof-reading: Leszek Gardeła (English), Andreas Kieseler (Deutsch)

Cover design: Wojciech FilipowiakFoto: coin of Jaxa of Köpenick, after Ryszard Kiersnowski

Printed by: MD-PRINT Dariusz Skalski

ISBN: 978-83-63760-16-8 (Wydawnictwo IAE PAN)ISBN: 978-83-64277-11-5 (Wydawnictwo WH US)

Szczecin 2013

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Contents

Mateusz Bogucki, Marian RębkowskiPreface .................................................................................................................... 7

THE MOUTH OF THE ODRA RIVER IN THE MIDDLE AGES .......................... 11

Przemysław KrajewskiNotes on the archaeology of Wolin Island in the light of changeable features of geographic environment .................................................................... 13

Hauke Jöns, Sebastian MessalNeue Forschungen zur Struktur mittelalterlicher Hafenanlagen an der südwestlichen Ostseeküste ........................................................................ 25

Andrzej JanowskiHarbours of early medieval Wolin in the light of recent researchof early medieval Wolin in the light of recent research ................... 45

Przemysław UrbańczykPolitical and economic status of the Odra estuary area at the turn of the 1st and the 2nd millennia AD ............................................................... 59

ECONOMIES, MONETISATION AND SOCIETY: GENERAL STUDIES .................................................................................................. 73

Dagfinn SkreMoney and trade in Viking-Age Scandinaviatrade in Viking-Age Scandinavia in Viking-Age Scandinavia ..................................................... 75

Stanisław SuchodolskiWarum hat man im frühen Mittelalter Schätze deponiert? ............................. 89

Leszek SłupeckiTemple fiscality of pagan Slavs and Scandinavians ........................................... 109

Dariusz AdamczykFernhandelsemporien, Herrschaftszentren, Regional- und Lokalmärkte: Die ökonomischen Funktionen von Silber oder: Wie lässt sich der Grad der Monetarisierung in den frühmittelalterlichen Gesellschaften des Ostseeraums „messen“? ................... 115

Marek JankowiakTwo systems of trade in the Western Slavic lands in the 10th century ...................................................................................................... 137


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Marcin PaukMoney makes this world go round. Some remarks on ducal power, coinage and society in Central Europe (1050–1200) .............................. 149

ECONOMIES, MONETISATION AND SOCIETY: COMMODITY MONEY .............................................................................................. 157

Jacek Adamczyk Fur money – a by-product of the inflow of the Arabic silver .................................................................................................... 159

Marcin Szydłowski The use of stone artifacts as commodity money in the light of the finds from early medieval Wolin ............................................................... 169

ECONOMIES, MONETISATION AND SOCIETY: REGIONAL STUDIES ................................................................................................ 175

Jiří Macháček, Jan VidemanMonetisation of early medieval Moravia in the light of new archaeological discoveries in the Lower Dyje region (Czech Republic) ................................................................................................... 177

Barbara Butent-StefaniakThe earliest Scandinavian coins in early medieval in Silesia hoards ................ 201

Piotr BorońWhere did the Piasts take silver from? The research on metallurgy and mining centre on the border of Silesia and Lesser Poland in the early Middle Ages .......................................................................... 209

Felix Biermann Neue völkerwanderungs- und slawenzeitliche Münzfunde aus Brandenburg und ihre wirtschaftsgeschichtliche Aussage ................................ 223

Jens SchneeweißMünz- und Gewichtsgeldwirtschaft an der westlichen Peripherie der slawischen Welt ............................................................................ 237

Ralf WiechmannKupfer und Messing statt Silber. Münzimitationen des 11.Münzimitationen des 11. und 12. Jahrhunderts aus Nordostdeutschland .................................................. 267

Oliver MeckingOberflächenbehandlungen und Legierungszusammensetzungen der Münzen aus Usadel, Parchim und FlessenowMünzen aus Usadel, Parchim und Flessenow, Parchim und FlessenowFlessenow .............................................. 313

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Jerzy PinińskiCoins in Pomerania between the 8th and 10th century ........................................ 323

Peter IlischHoards Berlin I and II (Pomorze VII and VIII) ................................................. 337

Mateusz BoguckiCoin finds from Wolin and its hinterland ........................................................... 345

Jerzy StrzelczykJaxa und seine Münzen ......................................................................................... 359

Stanisław RosikFünfzig Talente für die Lanze Cäsars und dreihundert für slawische „kontina“ – Zur symbolischen Valorisation der Preise im 12. Jh. in den Biografien Ottos von Bamberg .................................... 369

Authors ................................................................................................................... 377


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Preface


It has now become a tradition that the annual Festival of Slavs and Vikings in Wolin is accompanied by academic sessions devoted to the studies of the Middle Ages. The idea for the sessions was initially put forward by the authorities from the Wolin commune and in 2010, at the initiative of the Major of Wolin, a new bi-annual conference series entitled Wolin Medievalist Meetings (Pol. Wolińskie Spotkania Mediewistyczne) were inaugurated. The conference series is hosted by the Szczecin branch of the Institute of Archaeology and Ethnology of the Polish Academy of Sciences (currently, Centre for the Medieval Archaeology of the Baltic Region in Szczecin) and the Chair of Archaeology of the Szczecin University. The major goal of the organizers was to create a platform for meetings and exchange of ideas for representatives of various academic disciplines whose research focuses on the history and culture of the Baltic region in the Middle Ages. It has been decided that the subsequent sessions would be devoted to one main theme, but due to the conference location in Wolin there would also be room for other contributions discussing the results of the latest discoveries concerning the medieval past of the Odra estuary and Wolin in particular. The papers from the first conference, which focused on elite culture in the Middle Ages, were published two years ago1.

The second edition of Wolin Medievalist Meetings was organized between the 3rd – 5th August 2012 in the Municipal Office of Wolin and it was attended by over forty archaeologists, historians and numismatists from Poland, Germany, Great Britain and the Czech Republic. More than twenty papers were presented – five of them discussed the Odra estuary in the early Middle Ages, while the majority of other contributions concentrated on the main topic of the conference Economies, Monetisation and Society in the West Slavic Lands 800–1200 AD. The direct inspiration for focusing on the notion of medieval coinage was a conference organized in Aarhus in 2008, entitled Silver Economies, Monetisation and Society in Scandinavia, 800–1100. The publication including papers presented in Aarhus has demonstrated how rich, diverse and complicated was the notion of the functioning of coinage at the dawn of state formation in Europe2. Since the Aarhus volume concentrated on Scandinavia we felt inspired to further expand this research and gather the experiences of scholars who worked on similar notions, but in the West Slavic cultural milieu.

1 Ekskluzywne życie – dostojny pochówek. W kręgu kultury elitarnej wieków średnich, („Wolińskie Spotkania Mediewistyczne” 1), ed. M. Rębkowski, Wolin 2011.M. Rębkowski, Wolin 2011.

2 Silver Economies, Monetisation and Society in Scandinavia AD 800–1100, eds. J. Graham-Cambell,J. Graham-Cambell, S. Sindbæk, G. Williams, Aarhus 2011.


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In the introduction to a seminal publication entitled Pieniądz kruszcowy w Polsce wczesnośredniowiecznej Ryszard Kiersnowski emphasised that the notion of money circulation in the early Middle Ages is largely understudied, and that his work was only a humble attempt to highlight the major problems3. According to Kiersnowski the main reason for the absence of serious academic interest in these notions was a deficiency of well documented source material, the underdevelopment of research methods and theoretical approaches, but also insufficient collaboration between the various disciplines, which (usually to a very small extent) touch upon the problem of early medieval coinage. At that time historical and archaeological studies within the field of numismatics were usually undertaken separately and their results were rarely confronted and discussed. In his studies Professor Ryszard Kiersnowski skillfully combined the research traditions of history and numismatics, but only to a limited degree was he able to utilize the potential of archaeology. He should not be blamed, however, because archaeology at that time – apart from delivering material evidence – was unable to offer much information for the scholar of the history of money. In recent times this situation has changed significantly. Apart from the obvious fact that the number of source materials is constantly growing – and this includes not only coins – we have now gained extensive experience due to the serious developments within the field of archaeological methods and theory. The application of a plethora of methods stemming from history, cultural anthropology or exact sciences in the current research on early medieval coinage allows us to draw much more substantial information from our sources than it was deemed possible fifty years ago. Therefore, the goal of contemporary scholars of these notions is not to completely dismiss the achievements of past researchers, but to critically revaluate some of their claims, supplement them and first and foremost to set them within a new and broader context which archaeology itself has to offer.

The selection of topics and authors who accepted our invitation to participate in the Wolin conference was subjected to the conviction that in modern studies on medieval coins it is absolutely vital to incorporate interdisciplinary and supplementary methodologies of disciplines such as history, archaeology, numismatics and even anthropology. Nearly all of the papers presented at the conference have been included in the present volume. Its structure precisely reflects all the goals that we originally set as the organizers. The first part comprises several articles that discuss the latest research on the lands situated at the lower Odra, while the three further parts of the volume are devoted to various aspects of the functioning of money in the West Slavic area in the early Middle Ages. After a range of general papers that focus on the functioning of money in particular cultural contexts, the later contributions concern money media. The volume ends with articles devoted to particular regions of the West Slavic area. We are fully aware of the fact that this publication is not an exhaustive monograph of the matters studied, but at the same time we sincerely hope that it will allow for the wider acknowledgement of the complexity of the problems explored within its pages, the richness of the various phenomena and the great diversity of the West Slavic area.

3 R. Kiersnowski, Pieniądz kruszcowy w Polsce wczesnośredniowiecznej, Warszawa 1960.

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Finally we would like to cordially thank everyone who made the publication of this volume possible. We express our gratitude to the authorities of the Wolin commune and the director of the Wolin Museum for creating the perfect intellectual environment for organizing our conference in Wolin, at the Dziwna River. We also thank the authors for their contributions to this volume, including those scholars who could not come to Wolin, but who kindly summited their articles afterwards. Special thanks to the reviewers for recommending this volume for publication.

Money and trade in Viking-Age Scandinaviatrade in Viking-Age Scandinavia in Viking-Age Scandinavia

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Money and trade in Viking-Age Scandinaviatrade in Viking-Age Scandinavia in Viking-Age Scandinavia1

Dagfinn Skre

In many studies of Viking-Age economy and society the period’s increased use of coins and cut silver is bestowed with major explanatory force. In my view this is unjustified. The introduction of silver as means of payment had few consequences; it is rather itself a consequence of profound societal and economic changes. As the British historian Michael Postan (1973, 28) wrote: The ‘rise of a money economy’ is one of the residual hypotheses of economic history: a deus ex machina to be called upon when no other explanation is available. This skewed focus in the study of payment media is, I believe, rooted in the view that gift-giving was the period’s main mode of exchange. The consequence of this view, which has dominated economic studies for more than 30 years, is that trade is underestimated and underinvestigated.

This paper addresses the question of how money was conceived and used in trade in the Viking Age and before, but starts with some brief reflections on the role of gifts. For several decades it has been the Stand der Forschung that in Viking-Age Scandinavia gift-giving was the dominant type of exchange, supplemented with plunder outside Scandinavia, and with a modest market trade emerging in the course of the period (e.g. Hodges 1982; Lindkvist 1988; Christophersen 1989; Samson 1991; Hedeager 1993). As I see it, the giving of gifts was a highly important custom, particularly for creating and maintaining political alliances and a group of followers. Gifts forged or maintained social relations. Such motives would not be relevant in all situations where two parties had an interest in exchanging products. It would, for instance, rarely be the case in the relation between a buyer of an object and the craftsman who produced it. Would, e.g., the metalcaster who produced large numbers of low-cost ornaments for the populace be interested in forging lasting and binding social bonds with all his customers? Neither gift-giving, Viking raids, nor trade in the period’s few markets and towns can account for such products’ wide distribution in the Viking Age, nor for the distribution of everyday utensils and necessities, e.g. of iron, pottery, soapstone and whetstones throughout the first millennium. Exchange with the prime intention to acquire objects, not to establish or maintain social relations, must have existed in a rural context.

This realisation leads to an interest in money. How could trade go about when coinage and silver, by many scholars considered to be the period’s only money media, were scarce or lacking?

1 An earlier version of this paper (Skre 2011b) appeared in Graham-Campbell et al. 2011.

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1. What is money?

A basic concept when discussing money is value. On the basis of several Germanic languages, the Proto-Germanic verb *wérđađaa, datable to well before AD, can be reconstructed. The word’s basic meaning, which was carried into the various Germanic languages, seems to have been “turn towards”, developing to “corresponding to”, or “given as compensation for” (Bjorvand, Lindeman 2007). Seemingly, the etymology indicates that an object’s value was not considered an intrinsic quality but rather a relation. Its value emerges when it is compared to another object, that is, as a potential or actual object of exchange.

That comparison and subsequent exchange may have several forms. In barter, the value of the two is compared directly; there is no unit in which their respective value can be counted and compared. Therefore, in each barter transaction, the two parties need to negotiate the exchange afresh (Lunden 2007, 8).

In all other forms of exchange than barter various items, be it commodities, silver or coinage are ascribed monetary functions. As will be evident in the following, one and the same medium may have different monetary functions in different transactions. Such functions are not inherent in each of the money media; they are ascribed to them anew in every transaction. Therefore, one searches in vain for inherent monetary functions in commodities, coins and silver – they are not there. The key to understanding the use of money media is to study their functions in actual transactions, and this line of reasoning will be pursued in the following.

Aristotle was the first to define money as a set of functions that items may attain: the functions of being a medium of payment and a unit of account (Melitz 1974, 4–5). The media which the functions of money are awarded to may in addition have a utilitarian value. Coinage may have money functions, but has no utilitarian value. The same goes for silver and gold bullion or ornament; they have utilitarian value for the silver smith only. But many of the commodities which have served the functions of money around the world, like salt, hide, pigs, cloth and cocoa beans, would also have a substantial utilitarian value (Lunden 2007, 9; for general surveys of money media, see Quiggin 1949; Einzig 1966).

Commodities may take on one or both of the monetary functions. In some contexts, one single commodity serves both as a medium of payment and a unit of account. Consequently, every transaction will involve that commodity as payment, e.g. in the use of cigarettes as currency which developed in Prisoner of War camps during World War II (Radford 1946). This was not the case in high medieval Norway, where one of the exchanged commodities might serve as unit of account in which the value of the other commodity was expressed, thereby indicating what quantity of that commodity was necessary to settle the deal. But the two commodities involved in the transaction may also both have had their value expressed in a unit of account based on a third commodity that never entered the transaction.

When considering how silver and coins were used in actual transactions (section 2), they differ from commodity money like hide, cows and cloth only in that they could be used for little but payment. Under certain social conditions, which will be discussed below (section 3), the combined functions of commodity money,


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the utilitarian value and the potential of being a medium of payment and unit of account, makes it superior to silver and coinage.

2. Buying land with silver, cows, butter and cloth

On April 28th 1321 Ogmund at Lote presented the claim to the court that a farm in Hundeidet in Nordfjord, Western Norway was his wife Ingrid’s ođal (lawful inheritance). Six witnesses stood before the court and listed eight generations of fathers and sons who had possessed the farm, ending with Ingrid’s father. Given such testimony Ogmund had the right to acquire the land on his wife’s behalf. The court of twelve men decided that for this farm, which had the value of 8 mánađarmatarból, Ogmund should pay 40 kýrlag. He paid in pure silver and coinage, and the value of the silver was set by the court to one mark silver for three kýrlag, and the value of one mark of Norwegian coins was set to 2/3 kýrlag. Ogmund then weighed up 10 merkr, 5 aura and 1 ærtogh of pure silver (c. 2.26 kilos) and 12 merkr of coins (c. 2.57 kilos) and made the payment (DN III, no. 122).

The unit kýrlag that is mentioned in the document was the value of a good cow. It is probably the most ancient unit mentioned in this document (see below, section 3.1). In Ogmund’s transaction, kýrlag is the unit of account, that is, the common unit in which the value of both the farm and the various types of payment is defined and made comparable. The value of the actual payment, silver and coins, was defined according to weight (1 mark = 8 aurar = 24 ertogar = c. 214 g). The weight units mark and eyrir (pl. aurar) can be traced back to the early first millennium, while ertog is an invention of the Viking Age (Brøgger 1921; Kilger 2008b, 279–280).

The following example shows that the scope of payment media was wide. On January 4th 1346 in Våle, Vestfold, four witnesses testified that Kolbein Simonsson had sold Torleiv Eiriksson a share in the farm Olumstad worth 32 kýrlag. The following payment was made (the document’s value assessments in brackets): 1 red horse (4 kýrlag), 2 bulls (5 kýrlag), 7 cows (7 kýrlag), 1 bullock (1 kýrlag), various types of cloth (9 kýrlag), 8 laupa butter (4 kýrlag), and 2 pound grain and 2 laupa butter (2 kýrlag) (DN X, no. 52).

In these and numerous other examples, commodities are used as units of account and media of payment on a par with silver and coinage. Coinage, which according to classic money theory should fulfil both of the two main functions of money, in some transactions does just that, in others it is only a unit of account and payment is done in other media, while in others coinage is just a medium of payment while merkr silver or kýrlag are the units of account. And in some transactions, like in Ogmund’s, coinage is not even a medium of payment, it is not counted but weighed like any other type of debased silver.

Coinage seems to have been considered as a commodity like any other. One needed to “buy” coinage to be able to pay expenses where the receiver demanded to get paid in coins. In 1626 the vicar in Rødøy, Helgeland, a region famous for its vast production of dried fish, reported after a visit in Bergen, that I Rigsdaler kostede II W. Rundfisk (“1 Rigsdaler [coin unit] cost 2 våger [weight unit] of dried fish”) (Norske Samlinger 2, 502, italics and brackets added in translation; Høgsæt 2001,

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70). Here, money is “bought” for fish. Not until the late 17th century did money become the common unit of account in Helgeland (Høgsæt 2001, 74).

It is evident that in transactions, the use of coinage has the same characteristics as the use of commodity money; both may carry none, one or both of the functions of money. But, as mentioned in my introduction, the main trend in the analysis of the Medieval economy has a different focus, namely on inherent properties of the money media themselves, especially of coins. Since Bruno Hildebrand (1864) coined the three concepts expressed in the title of his paper Naturalwirtschaft, Geldwirtschaft und Creditwirtschaft (“Natural Economy, Coin Economy and Credit Economy”), the use of commodities as payment has been seen by many economic historians as opposed to the use of coinage, occurring only in societies where basic necessities were the dominant products and objects of exchange (e.g. Gullbekk 1998; 2009).

Although none of these two assumptions are totally mistaken, from the examples above they do not seem quite to hit the mark. As Marc Bloch poignantly expressed in the title of his paper Natural Economy or Money Economy? A False Dilemma (1967), the use of, respectively, coinage and commodities as media of payment does not constitute different economies. For most of the Medieval period, the use of one or the other was not a question of different economic systems, but rather a matter of availability and the preferences of seller and buyer negotiated in the transaction.

Most of Medieval Europe made use of commodities, coinage and credit in transactions, which indicates that Hildebrand’s idea of them constituting three types of economy is really not fruitful. Still, all over Europe there has been a development, although not at all contemporaneous or linear, from the singular use of commodities to the singular use of coinage as medium of payment and unit of account. In Scandinavia that development took place over most of a millennium and in the following I shall suggest some social parameters by which first transactions involving the commodity money, and secondly the introduction and acceptance of silver and coinage should be understood.

3. Commodity money in the Viking Age and before

What characterizes a society where commodities with a utilitarian value would be the most effective type of money? This question will not be answered in full in this section, but some points will be developed. In parallel, evidence for the use of commodity-money in Norway in the Viking Age will be discussed.

3.1. Units of accountIn societies with some trade in necessities the units of account are normally some

media which are produced and consumed by most people. In many rural societies, like the Scandinavian ones were in the 8th century and earlier, agricultural products would be the obvious choice. In the 12th century Icelandic law-book Grágás, weighed silver and the value of a good cow (in Iceland called kúgildi), are the two units in which prices and fees are defined (Naumann 1987, 378–380). In the 12th century Gulathing law (Chs. 41, 223; Lunden 1978, 56) the value unit kýrlag is defined as that of a neat cow that has proved able to carry a calf and is no more than


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8 winters old. But is there any actual evidence of such units of account in Norway in the Viking Age and before?

In my view, the reason why the introduction of silver is considered by many scholars to mark a watershed as the first standardized unit of value (e.g. Steuer 1987, 123), is the meagreness of written evidence from the Viking Age as well as the difficulties in identifying other types of money than coins and cut-up silver (Brøgger 1936, 76). Silver money speaks for itself; unless reworked into an ornament, a coin is obviously a medium of payment, most likely also the cut-up silver-pieces lost here and there in a market-place or town or hidden in the ground. Conversely, the bones from a cow found in a midden, the iron ingots in a deposit, or the scant remains of a crude, woollen dress in a grave carry no mark of once having been parts of the payment for grain, as they actually might. According to the normal exchange rates of the 13th century (Steinnes 1936, 134–139), one cow, 120 standardized iron ingots (c. 12.3 kg) or 35 oln of woollen cloth (c. 16.5 m) could be used to pay for 1.5 skippund of grain (c. 280 kg).

When their remains are found during excavations, the money function of cows, iron and cloth remains a potential. But to disregard that potential, and take the artefactual evidence at face value only, must be characterized as overly empirical. This is especially so in the light of the overwhelming evidence of the dominant role of commodity money in the High Middle Ages. To disregard that evidence as irrelevant for understanding the use of money media in the Viking Age would be under-empirical. Both philological and archaeological evidence supports an approach that strives to strike a balance between the two.

The Old Norse word for movable wealth is fé, literally meaning “cattle” (Keyser et al. 1846–1895, 180–813; Fritzner 1886:5, 396–397). Although cattle were an important, in some cases the dominant component in most farmers’ moveable wealth, the background for the word acquiring this meaning is hardly a simple expansion of its core meaning. The background is rather that the value of moveable possessions was counted in kýrlag.

This account unit seems to have been well known in many parts of Europe. Words with the same double meaning as fé existed in several Germanic and Latin languages already in the early first millennium, e.g. Gothic (faihu), Old Saxon (fehu), and Latin (pekūnia, leading to the modern “pecuniary”). In Scandinavia the double meaning can on linguistic grounds be traced back to Proto-Norse which was spoken in the first half of the 1st millennium (Bjorvand, Lindeman 2007, 249–251). This unit could be applied in many contexts other than trade, e.g. to calculate the value of the deceased’s possessions when they were distributed among the heirs.

In the early 1st millennium AD the first evidence of other account units appear in the form of weight-adjusted rings of silver and gold, as well as weighing implements like scales and weights (Brøgger 1936). It would be fair to assume that kýrlag dates back to the same period. Although some finds in special contexts of cut-up silver and gold may indicate a modest use of precious metals as media of payment in trade as early as the 3rd century (Skre 2008a, 345), precious metals in the shape of rings were probably mostly used for paying fines, bride wealth, and other obligations involving high values fixed by tradition and law. The Old Norse word for fine is baugr, literally meaning “ring”, that is, silver or gold ring, demonstrating that fines

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were stipulated, possibly also paid, in rings. The standardized silver and gold rings of the first half of the first millennium testify that this custom goes back to that period, and baugr later became a unit of account for fines. In the 12th century one baugr was 1.5 marks silver (c. 321 g) (Keyser et al. 1846–1895:5, 92; Seip 1957).

3.2. Trading with commodity moneyIn Viking-Age Scandinavia most farms produced the food necessary to feed

the farmer’s household and staff, like butter, meat and cereals. Many would produce their own cloth and forge most tools, nails etc. in the farm’s smithy. But necessities like soapstone vessels, shoes, iron, whetstones and finer cloth would not be produced in all farms; neither would the ornaments, brooches, beads, weapons, antler combs, riding gear and boats that grave-finds tell us were widely distributed in the Viking Age.

How would one go about to get hold of such items? How did, e.g. a man with a cow to sell and in need of iron find the man with iron to sell and in need of a cow? There are, in principle, two ways that could come about. Firstly, he could go to a large market where sufficiently many people offered goods for sale (Melitz 1974, 65). Among all these there would probably be at least one iron holder who was in need of a cow. Alternatively, the cow-seller could rely on his knowledge of the needs and preferences of iron-producers living in the vicinity, and then search out the man most likely to trade his iron for the cow.

In this case one transaction would normally be sufficient for both parties to get things they needed. If the cow was sold for silver, two transactions would always be necessary to get the iron. Consequently, in a society with either regularly held markets or where one had reliable information on who offered and were in need of which types of goods, the direct exchange using a common unit of account would have lower transaction costs than one with silver or coinage as the only medium of payment. As will be clear below (section 4), this conclusion is only valid under certain conditions: that the scope of exchanged goods was narrow and that the total number of transactions to maintain a household was low.

Even with detailed information on the products and preferences of other producers, finding a trading partner when a need arose was not always easy. What Melitz (1974, 57–60) calls search costs would be higher in most societies that did not have markets. A well-known way of handling this problem is to postpone payment and thereby establish debt obligations (Hildebrand 1864; Melitz 1974, 65–66; Anderlini, Sabourian 1992). Then the buyer, who now becomes a debtor, will have some time to get hold of the kind of payment demanded by the seller, now the creditor. The detailed regulation of loans and the settling of debts in the Icelandic Grágás and the Norwegian provincial laws, especially the Gulathing law (Chs. 35–50, 55, 59, 71, 115–116), demonstrates the frequency of such obligations, as well as their potential for resulting in conflicts (Miller 1990, 78).

In southern and southeastern Scandinavia seasonal markets were held throughout most of the 1st millennium, while in the west and north markets seem to have been few or none before the 11th century (Skre 2008b; 2011a). This difference within Scandinavia is mirrored in the standardization of weight units. Viking Age finds of weights testify that mark and eyre were widely used, but with regional variations in


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their precise weight. Such variations were a nuisance in interregional trade, but not a severe obstacle; the seller and the buyer could weigh the silver each with their own weights and then decide whether they were satisfied with the deal. A higher volume in interregional trade would still push towards standardization. This occurred in southern and southeastern Scandinavia c. 860/870 when precise and standardized weights started being widely used (Pedersen 2008). The geographical distribution of these weights (Steuer et al. 2002, Abb. 4) coincides with that of contemporary markets and towns (Skre 2012, fig. 1), indicating that interregional trade had a higher volume there than in the rest of Scandinavia.

From this, there seem to have been different solutions within Viking-Age Scandinavia to the problem of finding a trading partner. In regions with few or none towns or markets people would have relied on their knowledge about the needs and products of other producers in their search for a trading partner. The paucity of markets and towns in Norway before the 11th century and the lack of interregional weight standardization probably indicate that trade was mainly intraregional and that interregional trade did not reach the same volume as in southern and eastern Scandinavia.

4. The introduction and early use of silver as money

In Europe in the first millennium the power to define which metal-media should be money resided in the vast economies in the south. In the Roman period gold was the main money metal-medium in Europe and copper and more rarely silver was used for low denominations. Silver took over the dominant position as metal-money in Western Europe at the end of the 7th century reaching Scandinavia in the 8th. At that time, silver was also the dominant money metal-medium in the Caliphate, and the coins from there reached Scandinavia in the 9th century (Spufford 1988, 7–73).

Why were silver and gold chosen as money? In addition to historical factors some of the two metals’ properties supply the explanation. Both metals were available in Europe and in the Caliphate, and the relative scarcity of both gave them the advantage over e.g. lead and copper of having a high value pr. weight unit. Transport of value in gold and silver was therefore easy. Besides, they could easily be cut up and melted down and they could therefore easily be made into objects of any desired value. The quality of silver was rather easy to assess for the experienced trader. Test marks, so-called nicks, which can be found in silver objects from the Viking Age, testify that such assessment was performed regularly (Kilger 2008a, 226–227).

These qualities and the use of accepted type of money in central and western Europe made silver and coinage attractive types of money in some particular context which emerged in Scandinavia in the early Viking Age, namely in long-distance trade and in the urban way of life.

In Scandinavia, traders from the Frankish realm, most likely Frisians, were first present in large numbers in Ribe in the early 8th century. And this is where the first minting occurred. In Birka, Kaupang and Haithabu silver as payment, hack-silver and coinage respectively, was introduced some 2–5 decades after each of these towns were established. The presence of Frankish/Frisian traders is well attested

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in these towns (Skre 2011a). Since silver was the accepted currency in most other harbours they frequented they would prefer silver as payment.

Contrary to the rural population, urban inhabitants would produce little of their own food, but depend on buying it from people in the town’s hinterland. To be able to buy food, they had to trade off their produce, be it shoes, ornaments, cloth or combs. The selling of products and buying of food and other necessities means that the number of transactions townsfolk performed during a year would be infinitely higher than people who lived in rural areas and produced most of their own food. A high number of transactions would be easier to perform by using a generally accepted medium of payment (Melitz 1974, 49).

The scope of goods which could be purchased would be much higher in the town than in the rural context. Craftsmen living in a town produced a variety of goods, long-distance tradesmen brought exotic goods and people came from far afield bringing their own products for sale. Although it would be possible to predict the preferred payment of some urban salesmen, the number of potential trading partners would be much higher than in rural areas. The difficulties in predicting which types of payment sellers preferred would tend to favour the use of a generally accepted medium of payment.

While most rural trade took place in dense networks, much of urban trade would take place in loose networks. Trading partners would not necessarily meet again, especially if they were not permanent town residents. Therefore, the establishing of debt obligations would be less suited in the urban context than in the rural. This will have stimulated the development of a generally accepted medium of payment.

What I have called the urban way of life has four aspects: the higher number of transactions, the wider spectre of goods for sale, the higher number of sellers, and the looseness of networks. These four can be assembled under one headline: they result in an increase in the household’s total search costs. The introduction of a medium of payment with no utilitarian value answers to this problem; it reduces search costs by separating the problem of finding a buyer for one’s produce from that of finding a seller of what one is in need of (Melitz 1974, 58). When silver or coinage is taken or given as payment, one need only to find either a seller or buyer at a time, not both in one person.

The introduction of silver was gradual and spread over decades. In Kaupang, established c. 800 AD, trade and production was going on for more than a generation before the first documented use of silver as payment, and for two generations before the silver finds reach a significant volume c. 850 AD (Blackburn 2008; Pedersen 2008). Artefactual finds and workshop debris testify that long-distance trade as well as craft production was as significant in the first half of that century as in the second (Pedersen in prep.; Skre ed. 2011). This indicates that trade in that context could very well go on without the use of silver as payment, but in the long run the circumstances pushed towards silver being introduced and becoming widely accepted.


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5. Concluding remarks: Perspectives on trading, raiding and hoarding

Long-distance exchange is well attested also before the Viking Age in the numerous imports in Scandinavia and the shared aristocratic material culture around the North Sea and the southern Baltic Sea. This exchange did not necessarily take place on Scandinavian market sites and it did not stimulate the use of silver and coinage as media of payment. In that period long-distance trade was the privilege of the aristocracy; they achieved the attractive exotic goods through their personal networks, in what Colin Renfrew and John Cherry (1986) call peer polity interaction, where both parties had intimate knowledge of each other’s preferences.

Around 800 AD Scandinavians started to raid towns, churches and villages on the Irish Sea coasts and around the North Sea, and even earlier they ventured across the Baltic Sea and on Russian rivers. Ship crews from the north were hardly a totally new phenomenon in these regions, but the raiding indicates that some of these acted outside of existing networks. The reasons for the sudden shift to raiding are uncertain. Possibly, a new and lower social stratum of the Scandinavian population, less well connected in trade networks, took up long-distance travelling. Or perhaps the established aristocracy included raiding in their repertoire on long-distance travels. Raiding one’s friends and friends’ friends can have a high price that must be weighed against the possible gain of maintaining good relations. As indicated by Ohthere’s friendly visit to King Alfred’s court c. 890, some Scandinavians chose the peaceful option.

In the course of the first decades of the 9th century raiding attained a significant volume that deeply affected all lands in Scandinavia’s neighbourhood. Soon Scandinavians were involved in internal politics in the areas they raided, and they will have acquired the habit of using silver as payment. Perhaps surprisingly, there is little evidence that this habit was brought back to rural regions in Scandinavia. Neither do much of the enormous quantities of silver that was extorted in plunder, ransom and tax during the vast Viking campaigns in the 9th century seem to have been brought back. The number of Frankish and English coins found in Scandinavia is stunningly low (Sawyer 1971, 100–101; Blackburn 2008, 57–58) as is the total number of 9th century silver hoards and the proportion of hack-silver in them (Hårdh 1996). Silver seems just not to have played any role as means of payment in 9th century rural Scandinavia.

There is one significant exception. The first occurrence of substantial quantities of silver outside of towns and markets started c. 825 AD when weighed silver in the shape of Islamic coins was deposited in hoards in a totally rural context on the islands and shores of the southern Baltic Sea. This hoarding started and remained most prominent on the island of Gotland, which was a hub in Baltic trade. The silver arrived via the Russian rivers, where trade with the Caliphate had opened up in this period. Silver may also have arrived on the Vistula River in present-day Poland. In the following decades, such hoarding spread to the southern and eastern coasts of the Baltic Sea (Kilger 2008a, 214–229).

This 9th century occurrence of silver in rural regions of the Baltic should not be taken to indicate that silver was regularly used as means of payment there. Most Gotlandic hoards contain large quantities of coins rather than bullion, and

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should rather be understood as the working capital of Scandinavian long-distance tradesmen who collected this currency in their dealings along the Russian rivers. They hoarded their coins beneath the floors of their houses in Gotland until it was time to venture on a new trade expedition. It will be these traders that brought the use of silver to the towns and markets around the southern and eastern shore of the Baltic Sea. This use gained momentum in the last quarter of the 9th century, when the introduction of a more precise type of standardized weights and increased hoarding demonstrate that silver had become an accepted medium of payment in Baltic markets and towns.

There is little evidence to indicate when and to what extent silver was taken in use in rural trade outside of markets. Hoarding of silver in rural areas increased in the 10th century as did the proportion of hack-silver in the hoards (Hårdh 1996). But this cannot be taken as secure evidence of silver being used as payment in rural trade; the silver may have been assembled through raiding or through trade in markets and towns and then hoarded for later use there. Rings may have been acquired as fines or bride-wealth and then kept for similar use. The steep late-12th century rise in coin-finds in rural churches and the 13th and 14th century written evidence on rural transactions are the earliest firm evidence of significance extent of actual use of silver and coins in rural Norway.

Acknowledgements

This paper has benefited from written comments by Kaare Lunden and Svein H. Gullbekk, from discussions with several colleagues – too many to be mentioned individually – as well as from comments received following a presentation at the Medieval Archaeology Seminar at the Institute for Archaeology, Oxford University in February 2010.

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Documents

Money and trade in Viking-Age Scandinavia